The ship was comfortable and facilities good, all the staff were very friendly and provided excellent service all around the ship, the food was varied, interesting and very good, and the Expedition Team gave us very interesting lectures, provided plenty of information both on land and in the Zodiacs, ensured that guides and transport on-land was good, and when conditions necessitated it reactive quickly to make any changes to the daily programme. The service provided by everyone from organising this holiday and throughout the two weeks has been excellent.

In terms of the itinery the visits to the Orkney and Shetland islands which we saw as an added bonus did not disappoint. The Norwegian fjords which we have for long wished to visit just have to be seen. The ability of the m/s Expedition to get into the more interesting ones and enable guests to get on land to visit exhibitions and places was terrific. Spitsbergen was also the same case but was certainly beyond our expectations. It is a truly magnificent and unusual place made all the more real by our ability to navigate up and just into the ice-sheet and take the Zodiacs to enable us to get onshore. (ELN - 30th May 2011)